Both Madden and Kratz
faced daunting odds for their first moves this year. Madden moved 1. d4 for IM
Steven Zierk, who had white against the top-rated player ever to participate in
a UTD GM Invitational, GM Alexey Dreev. Tournament director Franc Guadalupe
explained the excitement behind the round one pairing, "Zierk is the current
World U18 Champion and our Denker Champion. Dreev has been rated over 2700 FIDE
before (October 2003 - 2705, January 2005 - 2704, and April 2005 - 2705) and
has been just outside the Top Ten in the world." Kratz moved 1. Nf3 for IM
Julio Sadorra, a UTD sophomore playing white against UTD alumnus GM Magesh
Panchanathan.

IM Sadorra, Abby Kratz and GM Magesh Panchanathan

Dreev prevailed over Zierk in an instructive game that showed how
to play against an isolated queen pawn.

Sadorra won an upset victory with a
nice tactic.

Panchanthan
still had something to be happy about, though. Before Round One began,
Panchanathan won the Richardson Cup by defeating FM Darwin Yang 1.5-.5 in a
two-minute, two-game blitz match. After winning the first game as black,
Panchanathan drew with white in the second game.

Fourteen-year-old
Yang is trying for his third IM norm. Using FIDE ratings and rules, Guadalupe
explained norm prospects, "Darwin is going to need 4.5 points for his IM
norm (and six points for a GM norm). Norm requirements vary from player to
player because the average rating of the opponents is not the same for all
players. For example, the average rating of Yang's opponents is 2483 but for
Hughes, our lowest-rated player (2267), the average is 2499.67 (since he does
not play a 2267 as Yang does). The cut-off for needing 4.5 points is an average
rating of opponents of 2492. Because of that, Hughes needs only 4.0 points for
the IM norm."